Seeking to leverage the momentum of his reelection victory for a partisan budget battle, President Obama called on Americans to use social media to pressure Congress in his efforts to keep tax breaks for most Americans while raising taxes on the wealthiest 2%.

The president's attempt to rally public support Wednesday via Twitter, Facebook and email marks a new strategy for the Obama White House — a dramatic shift from the grinding legislative battles and political maneuvers used to pass healthcare reform in 2010.

No longer the hands-off executive, as he appeared at the time, Obama has shifted to using the bully pulpit to support his legislative agenda, especially on a pledge he said a majority of Americans had supported on election day. But it heightened the already tense negotiating atmosphere on Capitol Hill.

"If there's one thing that I've learned, when the American people speak loudly enough, lo and behold, Congress listens," Obama said Wednesday at the White House before a bank of TV cameras and a selected group of middle-class taxpayers. Obama met later in the Roosevelt Room with business executives to make the same case.